Intentions or Resolutions?

We are now several days after most people have made...and many broken...their New Year's Resolutions.  I have been very intentional about not making New Year's Resolutions for many years because of the meaning that intention has for me.  Yet, each year at this time, I do soul-searching about that decision. I was in the final pages of proofing The Game Called Life, a book about living with intention, when the New Year turned over, so the internal debate took on new meaning.

First, I should probably clarify what living with intention means to me.  I believe that our souls chose certain spiritual lessons to learn in this life before we are conceived.  Those spiritual lessons are as much a part of our spiritual DNA as the color of our eyes or skin is to our biological DNA. Although we may not be consciously aware, we know in our hearts what those lessons are. 

When I speak of living with intention, I mean that each of us tunes in and listens to our hearts in a moment-by-moment choice point about what to do.  This process must bypass our brains which are programmed by the culture around us.  Our hearts will never ask for a Mercedes, for instance; those kind of wishes are based on externally-driven mental models.  The heart is about learning the lessons that are the purpose of our lives--those that serve the evolution of humankind. 

By definition, we should be checking in moment-by-moment to ask our hearts what will serve our heart's intentions or what will serve the evolution of humankind.  In that context, January 1 is no different than 5:20 p.m. on September 6, 4:28 a.m. on March 10, or any other moment on any other day of the year.  We are starting over every second.  For that reason, I have been intentional about not making New Year's Resolutions because, when I am being conscious, being intentional about a new start should be something I do hundreds of times every day.  If I fail, I don't wait to January for a new start, I just wait for the next breath.

I am aware that if we write down resolutions (or probably intentions), we dramatically improve the chances that we will keep them.  If we tell someone, we increase our success rate even more, and if we enlist someone to support us in keeping our pledges, odds of achievement are even greater.  That all leaves me pondering, "Shouldn't I be able to live my intentions from a place of consciousness and spiritual commitment?"  Theoretically, I suppose that should be the case.

Yet, over and over again, I slip from my heart's intentions, and, over and over again, I climb back up and refocus.  I tune in and start over.  This year, I have been wondering if I could reduce the amount of slip and slide, if I wrote my intentions down, shared them with someone(s,) and enlisted their help in holding me accountable.

One of the challenges of living with intention instead of setting goals or making resolutions is the complexity involved in tuning in to the heart.  Instead of three or four resolutions, there are literally thousands of combinations in any moment.  Only the heart understands what is the most important one at any given time.  Without the spiritual True North of our hearts, all the conflicting goals are simply a jumble of "shoulds." 

With all that said, I sit here at this moment, knowing that my heart wants me to be more regular about writing, my heart has the intention of creating health which involves exercise, and it also wants me to be more responsible about maintaining relationships.  At least two people are waiting to talk with me and I would like to talk with a third.  Even as all those intentions compete for these few minutes on a Sunday afternoon, I am really tired.  Chronic pain has exhausted me.  I can hardly hold my eyes open.  As I take a deep breath and exhale, while asking for guidance, the answer about what I am to do is clear. 

My mind struggles with how to get that kind of clarity from mental model resolutions, even if they deal with the same activities. Asking for help is key to living with intention.  Even though I've usually written about asking for help with our soul's intentions in the context of asking God for help,  this year I will enlist a couple close friends to help me with some intentions with which I've struggled. (Can we ever have too much help?) I don't know how this will work, but I hope that just having someone who reminds me to be conscious and to ask for help will be what I need.

Can I Be Trusted?

Friday afternoon I was irritable with my colleague, and she happens to be the best teammate I've ever had at work.  I was angry with myself for being unpleasant, but I was more angry for not being me.  For a while I stewed over it: what was wrong with me?  Then I realized what it was.

Like a bolt out of the blue, it came to me: I was resisting giving up the last vestiges of my integrity.  The resistance--the fight to maintain who I know myself to be in my heart--had weakened me. Over the last couple of years, slowly I've carved away almost every part of me that I've felt to be right and true.  Those who have read this blog for a while will know that I have struggled with eating sugar and a host of desires that sugar triggers.  I have grappled with gradually carving exercise from my life.  I have fought for time and energy to write...this blog and other things.  I have strained to figure out how I could do all the work expected of me and still work a reasonable number of hours.  All of these are things I know to be for me: they are important to my health, my life, and my integrity--who I know I am...in my heart.

So it is that yesterday, I sat at my desk in near tears trying to figure out how I could do 30 hours worth of work in the four hours that were left.  Well, that isn't quite right: I'd been off the clock for nine or ten hours by then, but it was still the normal work day.  "I am killing myself!" I thought.  Just as surely as if I were to pull out a gun, the way I've abused my body, mind, and spirit is killing me.

Although I should have done so, I didn't bring work home this weekend.  I have no idea how I will get everything done that I need to do for next week but, as the afore-referenced colleague has said, we've grown accustomed to almost no preparation for the string of events which we orchestrate. Somehow, I am sure I will figure this out...or I won't, but something must change.  I need the rest. I need renewal.  I need time to heal. I need my creativity.

A funny thought drifted into my mind.  Over 20 years ago, I was having a session with a cranial-sacral therapist.  I am not sure exactly what that is.  The practitioner held my head in his hands and, for lack of a better term, rotated it gently for an hour or so. I had struggled for several years with pain following an accident.  The total relaxation that I experienced in the "treatment" eased my discomfort. 

One day at the end of the session, he said to me, "You have self-trust issues." 

As much as I could do so in the state of total relaxation, I wriggled my face and wrinkled my brow a little.  I thought he was nuts.  Yesterday, I knew he was right.  I couldn't trust myself: I couldn't trust myself to do what I know I need.  Admitting this part should change things, right?  Just stop all those self-destructive behaviors in which I've been engaging. 

I've actually drawn a line in the sand several times.  I would work these crazy hours until a long-promised new team member arrives.  That was a process that started last October...almost a year ago.  We've heard a number of dates when the person was supposed to be here: March, May, June, July, August, September.  Two days ago the date we were told it will be October 6.  With each new date, I took a deep breath and put my nose down to continue for just a month or two more.  I've committed to some clients through the end of September, but I will not do this any more.

In the meantime, I am going to start taking those exercise lunches that have fallen away.  Tomorrow I will dispose of the "healthy junk food," which has slipped into my kitchen.  I commit to writing this blog more regularly and resuming regular attendance at dance events at least once a week.  These small steps won't reverse the damage, but at least they will stem the losses and provide me with some resilience. 

Hopefully, they will help me begin to restore my trust in me and my integrity, so that I will start to like the person I see in the mirror in the morning.  I want to be a person who can be trusted, and if I can't trust myself to do what is right for me, then who else can trust me?

As with every intention, bringing it to life comes in the magnitude of thousands of small choices moving toward what we choose.  Do what I need to do in this moment.  Then, in the next moment, do what I need to do again.  But, to do that I must be conscious--I must be awake, and this work addiction has lulled me back to that place, which the Upanishads calls "the sleeping place that men call waking." 

That's all there is to it: stay awake.  Of course, the Upanishads were written between 800 and 400 BC!  This is a battle that humankind has been fighting for a very long time, apparently with limited success.  I won't worry about that.  I am confident that I will not change the course of human history by going to exercise classes and dances, cleaning out my junk food, and writing this blog.  I don't need to change the course of human history.  I just need to change my life...in this moment...and the next...and the next.

The Sleeping State That Men Call Waking

I want to start this post with an apology.  On behalf of all the spiritual writers, myself included among them, who make it sound like evolving oneself is easy, I want to say "I'm sorry."  It isn't.  For those of us who work full-time, have household and family responsibilities, and hope just every now and then to do something that is fun, staying present can be exceedingly hard.  Without being awake, we cannot do any of the things that will evolve us spiritually, which may explain why so many writers across the centuries have indicated that being conscious is the most important thing to the spiritual journey.

When I had my business, I worked way more hours than I do now, but I was driving the car called my life.  If I wanted to take a little extra time to connect with a clerk in the store, I didn't have a boss waiting to say I was AWOL (absent without leave) because I was a few minutes late. If I wanted to take extra time to workout and de-stress during my lunch hour or even linger longer enjoying the sun, I knew my trade-off was working later, and I could make that trade. It was wrong of me to have written with a "just-do-it" tone.  I had just forgotten how hard it is to be present when life is framed by the expectations of others.

During the week, it feels like I step on a treadmill that goes faster and faster until I drop off exhausted at the end of the week...and I don't even have kids to pick up and drop off at school and a host of growth activities.  (My hat's off to those of you who have those things in your daily routine.)

I didn't totally go to sleep today because I remembered after two opportunities that I'd missed that I didn't make the heart connection for The Grocery Store Game (10/25/13.)  I celebrate that I didn't just snooze through the whole opportunity.   Even when I threw a couple dollars in a busker's case, I did so as I walked by rather than making a connection. However, I stopped at an art exhibit on the way home from work, and I did remember to make connection there. Yeah!!

The Hindu sacred text the Upanishads refers to "the sleeping state that men call waking."  When I first read it, a stunned knowing came over me.  "Yes! That is exactly what it is like," I thought.  I am walking around, and most people observing me would say I am awake.  I even believe myself to be awake. Yet as I autopilot through life, I really am asleep at the wheel of this car called my life.  I snooze through opportunities to connect.  I doze through appreciating the wonder around me. I forget to feel  gratitude for all the gifts with which I am blessed.  I miss the opportunity to show true appreciation to the busker singing a great rendition of "Hotel California."

In my effort to truly show up for my life, one time I put random reminders on my Outlook calendar  to remind me to wake up, but I became so accustomed to them that I began to sleep through them as well.

So, I am sorry for making this journey to consciousness seem easy.  I find solace that at least back as far as 2,600 years when the Upanishads were written, men and women have struggled to stay awake.  For that 2,600 years, people like you and me have shared "the sleeping state that men call waking," and they have periodically actually been awake.  For that, we can celebrate. 

And, each day we begin anew on the journey to the waking state that men call waking.  I like to think that suddenly one day, it will just happen--being awake, that is.  I will go through a whole day, totally attuned to what is going on around me.  Until then, I will be delighted at widening the margins on my autopilot life.  Ten percent one day, and maybe 25 the next.  Though I may backslide, as I clearly have done, holding the intention of moving to higher levels of consciousness feels to me like real progress.